Its design and price tag are polarizing Apple fans and detractors alike, but one thing is for sure: The new Mac Pro is selling strong. After going on sale Thursday with a ship date of December 30, the cylindrical desktop powerhouse is already delayed until February.

"Demand for the all-new Mac Pro is great, and it will take time before supply catches up with demand," an Apple spokesperson told Forbes. The Mac Pro is made in the US -- manufactured and assembled in Austin, Texas -- and Apple's terse response does little to indicate whether or not the decision to stay stateside is playing into the early shortages, or whether a conservative production volume is at fault.

Still, Apple product shortages post-launch are nothing new. Even with robust supply chains spanning Asia, each new iPhone rollout is met with crushing demand that keeps availability of the top-end models -- the iPhone 5S this fall, for instance -- scarce for up to months after release.

When it comes to desktops, Apple has run into similar issues. The release of the new iMac in late 2012 was met with supply shortages for weeks on end, leading CEO Tim Cook to make a rare admission of fault. "But if we could run it over, frankly, we would have announced the iMac after the turn of the year, because we felt our customers had to wait too long for that specific product," he told analysts on a conference call after the company's second-quarter earnings release.

It sounds like despite potentially having some knowledge of the shortage beforehand, Cook couldn't let Apple fall behind on the confident claims it made back in October that the US-made Mac Pro would be available by year's end.

Shortages aside, the Mac Pro is on its way to being one of the most divisive Apple products to date, with comparisons to trash cans and space ships running high on both sides of the fence. Here at CNET, readers are equally divided. A recent poll indicates that 53 percent of respondents feel that the Mac Pro is too expensive, while 32 percent think the price may be appropriate depending on what you need it for. Only 14 percent think it's priced correctly.

That's par for the course with Apple, as it's not easy convincing even the most devout fans that a computer that can be dialed up to $9,600 is not an extravagant purchase.

About the author

Nick Statt is a staff writer for CNET. He previously wrote for ReadWrite and was a news associate at the social magazine app Flipboard. He spends a questionable amount of his free time contemplating his relationship with video games while continuously exploring the convergence of tech, science and pop culture.
See full bio